Run-down
by motoroilfreeway
Summary: "It was you, wasn't it?" "How did you know?" "I'm a horror writer." warnings for Mutilations, Graphic Descriptions of Torture, Cannibalism, partial possessions, Ghosts, amputations, and Eating Disorders. [kanekicest]


**A/N:**

**inpired from another kanekicest fic under the same genre titled Lost &amp; Found by sakigami (AO3). Thanks man**

**another note: a partial possession, from the term itself is not a full possession. Which means whoever was partially possessed would only feel/experience sensations, emotions or memories of the partial possessor. Peeps partially possessed are aware of their surroundings, but not of what they were doing. Kind of like you don't understand why you're feeling like this and currently doing this but you just do. (I dunno, its hard to explain but if you don't rly understand how it works you can ask me and I'll try explaining the part you can't understand)**

**and the usual, WARNING: UNBETA'ED**

* * *

There was a house in Kaneki's neighbourhood that people would not want to do anything with. They don't want their children going any closer to that house.

But children being children, who like to play pretend look for adventures even in the smallest of places. The more the parents forbid, the more they would likely pursue the forbidden.

Kaneki was four when he first met the son of the Nagachikas, Hideyoshi.

Hide was born with an illness. Kaneki heard from his mother that the boy won't last long, and so Kaneki first thought Hide would be someone as fragile as he was. Turns out he was wrong.

Hide was a very boisterous child. Kaneki was the type who prefers to sit in a corner, always seen by the adults walking around with picture books his mother gets him and reads in silence by himself while Hide was the child who wants to be noticed and make a lot of noises. Hide is the life of the party, and Kaneki still finds it baffling as to how someone as bright and loud and strong like Hide chose him as a friend out of the throngs of stronger and livelier, more normal children around their age at that time.

Nevertheless, Kaneki was thankful.

Years pass and their bond grew strong. Unbreakable.

Only for death to finally come knocking at his door and take him away.

Four years later Hide's illness finally took his life.

For a nine year old Kaneki Ken who spent his first five years in solitude, watching children having fun and running around, wishing he could be the same as them and get the courage to join and finally found a place to belong in an ill boy's life, Hide's death hurt him as much as the Nagachikas. Maybe even more.

Kaneki wept and locked himself more frequently in his father's study, reading as much books as he could from dusk till dawn, with his mother worriedly knocking at the door thrice a day to bring him something to eat, since he always forgets. His mother allowed him for a month or so, since she thinks it was his way of grieving his friend. Kaneki didn't attend the funeral after all, since it must be painful to see a friend go.

Hide's parents coped with their son's death by moving out of the neighbourhood to somewhere far, probably to start anew.

Ever since Kaneki and Hide became friends Kaneki preferred staying at the Nagachika's home, since his mother is out of the house most of the day due to work. The Nagachikas had started babysitting Kaneki since that.  
The house is somewhat important to Kaneki, since it carries pleasant memories, no matter how painful they get when he remembers that the person he made the memories with is no longer with him.

The Nagachikas left the keys to the lot and house to him, to keep it cleaned and tend to. An excuse to give Kaneki full access to the house, some form of gratitude for making their son's last years of life worthwhile. Kaneki thinks it was the other way around.

It was soon revealed that the Nagachikas gave the rights of the house to Kaneki, although according to the Nagachika's family lawyer, he wouldn't be able to get the deed until he hits eighteen. The adults in the neighbourhood decided that the house's fate falls in the boy's hands and closed off the lot for the time being until Kaneki is old enough to decide for what he truly wants to do.

Ten years from now though, the house grew into something you would see in horror movies, where serial killers and ghosts seems to lurk in. Children and young adults started breaking in and frequent inside, for the thrill of the ghost stories and urban legends surrounding the house.

There had been recent news of children getting injured for playing around inside, but not because of the ghosts and creatures the children claim to lurk inside but due to the house's old structure. The floors are weak and it easily breaks, too weak to hold an average person's weight anymore. It is dangerous for people entering the house and thus the adults tightened the security around the lot.

Ten years would make Kaneki nineteen.

He just got the deed a few months ago, a few months after his eighteenth birthday, since the process took too long and required too many documents to get it done in a few days.

Ten years is a long time, and to be honest, looking at the house makes Kaneki think "I can't believe I wanted this house for ten years" as he crosses the old, rusting gate and steps into the growing grass inside the yard.

He nudges the door open, its knob long gone so he doesn't need the keys resting in his pockets to open the door. He thinks the door could fall from its hinges if he kicked it hard enough.

But that would be disrespectful to the Nagachikas. Kaneki knows they wouldn't care if the house burns down or gets vandalized; they stopped caring about this place ten years ago, when they left the will to a child who just recently learned integers and radicals.

Kaneki owns the house now, but he stills feels like the house doesn't acknowledge him at all as its new owner.

Reluctantly, he steps inside the dark building, the wooden flooring creaking and making threatening noises about collapsing if he were to lean his weight more into it.

He takes a deep breath, eyes looking around and sees the wreck it has become in his absence.

A year following Hide's death, his mother followed after.

Exhaustion from overwork, the adults say. She was working too hard, day and night nonstop. Even at home, where she was supposed to be resting or taking care of Kaneki, she has to make those paper flowers to sell. An extra income, she tells him. Just like when he asked why she works at night too.

It was hard for Kaneki to take, his mother's death.

What he felt when Hide died was nothing compared to what he felt for his mother. Both were painful but there was no way of knowing nor explaining how different but quite the same were the feelings of despair and loneliness he felt when the (only) two precious people in his life left him early in his life.

An aunt took him in. His mother's sister. The sister his mother worked hard for day and night nonstop, even at home when she was supposed to be resting or taking care of Kaneki. His aunt always says she's in need of financial help and runs to his mother for allowance every month, to pay for her bills and feed her family.

Her mother couldn't choose between her son and sister, for they are both her family and loves them equally, so in the end she had to work herself to death, leaving Kaneki in more pain and loneliness.

The time his aunt came to the funeral and greeted him with such kind words, Kaneki's mind screamed at him. Things. Scary things but he can't describe how or what kind of scary they are.

But they were telling him to watch out. That there is something about this woman who smiles in greeting and solemnly talks about his deceased mother in front of everyone.

It was in the her face, he thinks. There is just something about her face, her voice, her entire being that shoots these red flags at Kaneki when he got the pleasure to finally see her in an environment outside their living room and in the presence of his too kind mother.

She lives a bit far from his neighbourhood and so he was forced to leave their home, and Hide's too.

The Nagachika family lawyer refused to entrust the will to his aunt and so it remained his and only his. He cannot decide what to do with it yet unless he hits eighteen so his approval of entrusting the papers to his aunt where rejected by the lawyer as well.

There was this air, that suffocating air that wrapped around his body before entering inside through his nose that gave him this sudden impact of energy towards his head that made him almost collapse on his aunt's clean floor the first time he steps into her house.

The air was too thick with so many dark, heavy things. Emotions. Stifling and suffocating.

Nothing much was said or exchanged between her and his cousins that he never met before. She wasn't abusive and she even fed him and let him to go school.

There wasn't a problem.

There wasn't supposed to be a problem.

But there was.

She's quiet and there's this air around her that wraps around Kaneki, holding him down and oppresses him. Tying him down into submission.  
Whenever he tries to talk and make a proper conversation, she always gives him this look that tells him how much she wanted him to finish and let her get back to her own business.

He always gets shut down before he even got the chance to speak up.

He's well-fed and there's no abuse, but it feels like he's getting hurt anyway.

It feels like he's getting hit and starved and deprived of things a child like him is allowed to have.

Her indifference to everything Kaneki do hurts him.

There was a time he thought he actually made friends with a bunch of classmates at school. They invited him out on a weekend, and since no one has ever asked him out before, he agreed immediately.

He tried to ask his aunt for permission, but as usual, he was ignored. She didn't approve or reject his proposal so he went.

Only to see on his way home that his shelf was clean, his huge collection of favourite books gone. His aunt said she went out of her way  
that day to clean his room, since she noticed how dust were starting to gather everywhere.

Kaneki has the neatest room of them all in the household.

That was the first time he experienced his aunt's hostility towards him. He always felt it, ever since he saw her but chalked it up to him being too anxious and paranoid. The whole world doesn't hate him like how he thinks it does. Hide and his mother's death were mere coincidences, but his aunt's retaliation to Kaneki going out on a weekend to meet some friends from school clearly says he was right after all.

The world hates him.

He endured four more painful years with his aunt before finally moving out for college.

There was money in his mother's account. Insurance saved for Kaneki's college.

It was a large sum of money. Too large that it was enough for him to last up until he graduates. Just enough cash for him until he manages to earn for himself.

And so he leaves and returns to his old neighbourhood, which was a few minutes worth of walking from his school of choice.

Of course his house was no longer there, so he settles for renting a cheap apartment with a working toilet and bath. That is enough for a person like him to survive years of college.

Of course, there is always the house he inherited from Hide's parents, but its not really habitable anymore. It was just too damaged.

But he came to check it out anyway, a few weeks later after he finally settles in.

He comes in to check, maybe try and reminisce the memories he loved and will never forget.

But the house was a wreck. Nothing was recognisable anymore, with its lack of furniture and tattered walls.

The staircases are rotting away; he supposes it's not worth the risk to check the upper floor.

He looks around for no longer than an hour, and leaves.

Something as simple as pulling the main door closed caused the hinge to break and the door fall inwards.

He stands for a minute and looks at the fallen wood, hoping maybe it would rise back fit itself into the opening if he stared long enough and made no noise, but failed.

He decides the house is a lost cause.

Maybe he could sell the land, see if he can find some use for this place in any way he can.

Like selling it.

But he's not really sure how, since he doesn't know anything about selling lots and the papers involved in it might need a lawyer. He doesn't think he can pay a lawyer right now. He needs to save money after all.

His first day in college isn't so bad.

The whole day fully consisted of orientations from the university itself, down to his college department and his own degree course. The orientations lasted for the entire day, but he wasn't complaining. They provided free food, courtesy of the university organizations that helped hosting the orientations.

They were actually nice. And accommodating.

Though a whole day of doing nothing but talking to people who belongs in the same sphere of his interests may be great, it still tired him.

Mentally, anyway.

He wasn't the type to crave human interactions, after all.

A dark part of him blames his Aunt, but his logic part says he has always been like this. Nothing could make get him out of his shell, not even Hide.

He thinks that's because there really was no shell for him to come out of. He's the shell itself. The hard, sturdy, and faceless exterior that everyone ignores. There's no way to get a shell change into something else entirely. That's what Kaneki is.

Hide must've understood though, since the boy never put effort into introducing Kaneki to other people Hide plays with or talks to in classes. He never told Kaneki to talk to them, if he ever did introduce him to them.

Hide was truly the only person who understood him.

He feels like laughing to himself, thinking about a dead person most of his free time.

He grabs a book on random from his shelf before proceeding to his room, planning on reading until he falls asleep. Classes are not until tomorrow anyway, and he doubts professors will start with lectures at the first meeting.

After all, first meetings always require an introduction.

College went on just fine for Kaneki.

He did well in his courses and graduated with his degree in literature.

Nothing much to say about what happened during those years though.

But if prompted to tell anything Kaneki saw or experienced in college, he might be able to say something.

There was once this girl he met in one of his classes that he couldn't recall what the subject was all about.

She sat next to him and she was friendly.

Awfully so.

So she's from his university's student exchange program, which makes her a foreigner. Kaneki thinks that her being a foreigner has nothing to do with her behaviour: this desperation to meet and greet and make friends.

Kaneki thought he should leave her be, but then she tried talking to him too, as they all get ready and leave the lecture hall.

"Hey, want to walk with me to the mess hall?"

Kaneki pauses and looks (down, since she was shorter than he was). Her smile was too broad but genuine and open. An emotion coils deep in his gut, wraps around his head and darkens his vision. His throat feels like it wants to come out of his mouth so he swallows.

"I need to go home," He blurts out.

He grabs his bag and hurries down the steps. He doesn't look back and fastens his pace as he reaches the exit.

He doesn't want to see what kind of expression she made.

He thought that was going to be the last of her, but he was wrong.

This is a large class all throughout the term, and so their grades will come from exams, quizzes, and assignments plus some occasional incentive from students whenever the professor asks for volunteers.

The professor's quiz this time was rather hard, everyone was complaining and whining when the problem was pulled out. They are all sure to get it wrong and it will be recorded, of course no one likes it.

So the professor thought it was going to be a great idea to work with a classmate. Two people will answer the quiz.

Kaneki looks around, sees everyone act like childhood friends and settle with a paper. He starts to panic and looks around some more, hoping to see someone as lost as him.

Someone approaches him, and he looks up to see the exchange student.

Everyone is already paired up and busy with the problem, so that leaves them no choice but to pair up. Its for their grades, after all. Something small as a quiz can still tip your grade, be it to fail or to pass, so they have to grab anything they could get.

At first Kaneki thought it was going to be stiff and awkward, but the more they discussed the theories and principles they need to apply to the problem, he started feeling at ease with the atmosphere.

In the end, Kaneki found himself sitting in a table, facing the exchange student as they talk about English literature.

Apparently she's fascinated with Kaneki's choice of genre.

It was enough for them to meet and talk regularly in a coffee shop after that.

Kaneki spent the last nine or so years of his life without the warmth of a parent, so he couldn't say anything whenever she talks about her parents.

Her mother is working abroad, providing most of the income in their family while her father is a driver.

She grew up with her father, who, according to her stories, gave the Kaneki the impression that he is strict and old-fashioned. She told him how her father was against the exchange student program, since she had to be sent to a foreign country alone, so they had a huge fight about it.

Kaneki thinks it's not really a fight if the other side already lost in the very beginning. She told him she was lucky enough her mother managed to persuade her father, but in one condition: she cannot leave the country without him.

Kaneki thinks her father is too restricting, but she doesn't seem to notice the abuse at all. She grew up in it, so she couldn't really tell, does she?

She thinks its her father's way of loving her when in reality, it's her father's way of telling people that he owns her. He couldn't even trust her to be fine on her own in a foreign land for five months.

Damn, she talks a lot.

He thinks it was both a blessing and a curse, when one day they walking on their way to leave the campus and see her face light up and wave at someone by the gate. He turns to see who it was and feels the blood leave his face.

It was her father.

There was no need to ask her who it was, considering Kaneki always pictured him just the way he is seeing him now. Standing by the gate looking stern and old.

That black hair tainted with whitening strands just does its thing to scare him, make him wet his pants. When those old eyes fall on him, he felt his feet turn into stone. He couldn't move.

The man was old-fashioned. He heard her mention how he doesn't like it when he sees her with men because he thinks she was too young to be romantically involved. (How is 20 young?)

He's a boy, she's a girl. One look at them and things could immediately come out of that man's mind.

He wanted to make an excuse to her (forgot his book or an appointment with a professor), but she's already pulling him towards his doom, introducing him to this man she calls her father.

Ever since he met his aunt officially in his mother funeral, he has learned to trust his instincts. He realized he can read people so well like books-open or closed-at first sight. He was never wrong.

His instincts tell him that he should avoid to be left alone with this man in a room at all costs.

After the introduction, he feels cold sweat form in the back of his neck as he sees those small wrinkled eyes look at him in scrutiny. He feels like the man was looking him over to see if he's a suitable candidate as his daughter's future husband.

"Literature? How much will you get from that?"

Afraid to say, he was right.

Her family owns a house a town away from their university, so she had to rent an apartment nearby, which means she only gets to meet her father every weekend.

Kaneki thinks her father was crazy for interviewing her flatmates before letting her live in it.

One time she decided to watch a movie with him, a friendly date, she said and since he's got nothing to do that day anyway, he agreed to come along.

The thing is, he had to pick her up in her house. The house where her father lives in. She said his presence will raise the chance of her father letting her go watch a movie on a weekend.

Well, she was wrong.

Apparently, he thinks a bus ride away was too far, and disapproved.

There was coaxing from her side and more shouting from his side. Kaneki was forced to stand by the door in the living room, watch the exchange.

He doesn't know if he should just…leave.

Then the fight worsens, the father started screaming something about disowning and takes out bills in his pockets. Enough to get her to town.

He hands her the bills, and says if she won't listen to him, then she's free to take it and leave. Never to return.

She starts crying and says he's being unfair, "please, not in front of Kaneki!" He slightly fidgets at the mention of his name, nervous that that booming voice might get redirected to him. So they know he's still here.

The man reasons that's just how it works because she's his daughter and she has no right to defy his wishes and so. Kaneki stopped listening after that.

In the end, she relented and volunteered to walk Kaneki to the bus stop.

She was still crying on their way, but she tries to laugh it off, defending the old crook.

She was apologizing about how she wasted his time, but he says its alright. It wasn't her fault she had a possessive father.

On his ride home, he slightly worries about how she managed to live that long with a person like him.

Then he remembers how frogs don't leave the pot no matter how hot the water in it becomes, until they die.

That was the last time he saw her too, since that was the last week of her term. Her stay in this country is no more.

His debut as a literary author was successful.

Many loved his very first book.

A story about a boy who lived in a series of tragedies who in the end died preserving happiness that was never real.

He never imagined his first pay to be this generous, but he was happy nonetheless.

The first thing he wanted to spend his money on was getting himself a house for his own, since he still lives in the cheap apartment he lived in in his college days.

Then a thought occurred to him quick and fast, just like how it also faded from his thoughts.

Though he went and visited Hide's house again, at age 22.

It was uglier than before, to be honest.

The front door was still broken, and he couldn't tell if there are more vandalisms that before.

This time, he went up the stairs, feeling more courageous than his past self.

On his seventh step, the wood underneath his polished shoes creaks threateningly and he pauses, cautiously presses his foot harder, and leans his weight more to see if it will break if he were to step on it. It did not, so he continues.

On the last step he yelps when he feels cold air blow into his ear.

The strange thing is that it didn't feel like the evening breeze, but like how one would feel when someone where to blow into your ears.

A quick step into the next floor and looks around frantically to his left and right, a hand pressed into the abused ear.

Nothing.

He must be imagining things, his mind supplied. Writing and watching and reading horror must have done that.

He was still somewhat shaken up, and he leans his head into the dirty, rusty railings by the stairs that overlooks the floor below and breathes.

This time, he swears, he feels something touch his shoulders and whisper into his ear.

He jumps and screams, pressing his weight more into the old metal railings. The old, rusting thing collapses under the weight and Kaneki Ken falls 8 feet above.

Do you know what kind of sound you hear when you put a live centipede in your ear?

He wakes up to the loud sounds of a siren, and he realizes he was lying in a stretcher in an ambulance.

A paramedic tells him calmly that he fell, and someone called for help.

He was confused for a second on who could've found him. He doesn't have a family or people who would care that much to find him or know that he would be visiting Hide's house after all. He doubts people know he even owns the house.

"Some kids broke in and saw you. Called as soon as they could," the paramedic further explained. Bless rebellious kids.

In the hospital he was prompted to provide contacts of any of his family members, but failed to do so, since he had never talked to his aunt in years ever since he left the household for college and lived on his own.

Then another face occurred, and he wrote the numbers down.

Kirishima Touka was screaming when she saw him in a hospital bed, gauze wrapped around his head, a medical eye-patch to cover his eye and a casted arm. People looked at her in alarm, much to Kaneki's horror, praying to God they won't kick her out for disturbing the patients.

She was a few years younger than him and met her during his first year of college, when he sought to work part-time in a coffee shop.

She was loud and strong-willed, so different from Kaneki despite the fact that she also lost her parents at a young age like him. Kaneki's theory that his people-phobia was not because of dead parents was proven right by this woman. And also her little brother.

Though Ayato was a different case, Kaneki supposes.

There was a huge change in his personality when his father died. Cops mistook him for a criminal they were chasing that day, and got killed in the encounter. He was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. After that, shy, meek, little Ayato hardened like steel and got involved into too many brawls.

He engaged into more brawls than his sister ever did up to present, actually.

Touka merely reacted in his sudden change by scolding him, then kicking the boy.

So they fight a lot, but Kaneki never saw hostility in it. It seems like a part of their routine, shouting at each other. It's a normal thing between them.

Behind Touka follows Ayato, and upon seeing Kaneki's state, his expression darkens and his scowl deepens.

The first thing he said when the Kirishima siblings approached Kaneki's bed was "Who?"

Touka had once or twice or more than thrice told Kaneki how she worries that Ayato might be involved in some bad crowd, and Kaneki was afraid to say that that could be the case. Ayato had this habit of disappearing for days and weeks only to return covered in injuries and money in his hand.

Kaneki was quick to explain that he fell.

Ayato's expression lightens but his scowl remains, mirroring his sisters. They both say in perfect unison, "you are an idiot."

They look like they were about to leave right then and there, but a few hours later, they had to be forced out of the hospital because it's already past visiting hours.

When Kaneki was released, things started to happen.

There are times at night he was forced to write with music loud in his ears, because he kept on hearing noises that sound scarily like laughter.

Sometimes he wakes up to sounds of bones cracking, like the sound of someone cracking their knuckles.

It's ironic that a horror writer is a scaredy cat, but Kaneki knows that his fears were justified.

He spends his afternoons drinking coffee and reading a good book until he falls asleep. Ever since the accident, he finds himself waking up and unable to lift his hands and feet from where he sat, like he was tied down.

The first course of action he did was of course, ignore it. Hope that it would go away soon, or worst-case scenario is that he'll get used to it.

He doesn't want to get used to it, to be honest.

It scares him when he looks in the mirror and gets surprised at his black hair, touching the strands and holding it between his fingers and wonders shouldn't it be white?

How he finds himself distractedly counting backwards from one thousand minus seven.

The itch he feels in underneath the bones of his fingers and the occasional noise he hears in his head. Noise that feels like there was something in his ear that's making it and found himself sticking his own fingers inside his ears, trying to reach whatever that is that is making that noise to the point that he made his ears bleed.

Then there's these stinging sensations he feels in his eyes, like something small and hard is poking his sclera that it hurts and itches at the same time its driving him crazy how he wanted to scratch his eyeball until the feeling is gone.

It becomes unbearable when the dreams started occurring.

He sees himself sitting in a metal, worn-out chair in the middle of an empty room.

A man wearing a porcelain mask enters, pulling a tray with him. A tray filled with tools like pliers, needles, and knives. There was a small bottle containing live centipedes in the tray too.

Panic seeps out of his skin and he tries to break into a run, fails and sees himself chained to the chair. His hands tied behind his back, his wrists stung from the fresh abrasions of the metal chain against his delicate skin caused by tugging and pulling his arms free from the restraints. The same applies to his feet, tied together in front of him.

The large man breathes heavily in his mask, and says in that gruff voice, "I'm going to have a little fun with you for a while, okay?"

The man-Jason, his mind whispers to him-snaps his pliers like how you would a scissor, and Kaneki wakes up, screaming. Grabbing his feet and hands, checking for a non-existent wound and counts backwards by one thousand minus seven to calm himself.

It has been three months since he was released from the hospital. His deadline is three months away and he spent most of the months locked in his apartment, living off instant and delivery meals. Too scared to leave and be seen by people.

Another problem he had was that somehow he lost his appetite.

He could go on for two or three days without putting food or water in his system and feel fine. The smell of food that he would normally expect to be pleasant and mouth-watering somehow became revolting and nauseous. Eating became nothing more than a chore, since Touka made it her job to check on him at least thrice a day to check if he had already eaten. I'll know if you were lying, so don't you dare think about it. She said, so he forced himself thrice a day to stuff meals into his mouth. Pushing them down with water and fight off the vile rising out of his mouth.

Swallow.

Swallow.

w.

Wait, he still has his fingers?

He wonders, one night when he was lying in his bed. Not trying to fall asleep but merely lying, the softness of the mattress relaxing against his tired back. This bed is more comfortable than the one he used to sleep in back in the asylum.

There was something long and hard crawling in his head, down, down to his ears that he just have to scratch when-huh?

Fingers?

He still has them?

Strange.

He decides to ignore that for now, thinking he may be seeing things again.

The doctors explained that something like phantom limbs is normal for someone whose fingers were newly amputated.

He supposed that wasn't so bad, losing fingers, considering he lived and survived Jason's torture.

Crazy big man, who loves playing with people that catches his attention.

Rich too.

A mere farm boy like him can do nothing against a powerful man like Jason, but Kaneki always lived believing in justice. How wrong it is to step on people just because you sit in a high balcony and watch them work themselves to death under the hot sun.

Yakumo Oomori was his name, but the people working in the fields and in the town calls him Yamori. Jason, to those he plays with.

One day, Jason thought it was nice to play with a mother and her daughter.

Kaneki happened to be coming out of the barn that evening, finished his chore early and about to head home for supper.  
He saw how the big, burly man in a white, expensive suit pull the woman 's hair into his car, her child not too far from following in. Not willingly, but since the child's mother is getting pulled in, the child gripped their mother's worn out skirt and followed in.

The man was clearly a noble, and based on his clothing, it was easy for Kaneki to identify that this was the person everyone knows by the name Yamori. He owns most of the land in the town they plant their crops in.

No one wants to mess with Yamori.

But Kaneki thought that good intentions will always win, so he followed.

He was so naïve.

So he followed and tried to help out of good will, playing hero and thinking that after Kaneki brings the mother and child to the sheriff and take down their statements, Yamori will be behind bars in no time and justice will be administered. Everyone will be happy.

Not all stories end with a happy ending. Kaneki has a fascination with tragedies, so he knows that the most.

He barely got to the part of rescuing the mother and child.

He was instantly caught, then chained in an empty room.

At first he thought he will be left to starve and die.

He has no way of counting the days or hours, for there are no windows and it was bare of any noise or movement. He thought the silence would drive him to insanity.

It was a very long time, he thinks, when he hears the metallic doors creak open and see Yamori wearing a porcelain mask, pulling a tray with him.

In the tray, he sees various things like needles, injections, pliers, and knives. A bottle of live centipedes, crawling round and round inside the bottle is placed near the tray where the equipments lay.

"Sorry, I had to pick the best tools and sterilize them you see. Can't have you getting any infections before I have any real fun yet, do we?" Kaneki heard him say, voice low and rough like gravel in his ears.

The first thing he does was remove the chains in his hands and retie them against the arm rests. Yamori was too fast and Kaneki's hands were too numb for being tied for so long to manage to move away. Even if he could, his feet were tied. He wouldn't be able to escape that easily.

What followed, Kaneki forced down into the deepest parts of his mind. Too deep to probe and be seen by people who would force the memories out.

He just couldn't.

By the time Kaneki's torture was about to reach its climax, fingers were gone. What was left of them was a clean nub, his wound sterilized and wrapped in clean gauze. Yamori cannot allow him to die from something as ridiculous as infection, after all. His wounds were properly cared for, but the torture will forever leave a mark in him. The loss of his fingers were proof of it.

After playing with his fingers in his hands, he moved to those in his feet.

Same ritual.

Yamori starts pulling his fingernails off, one by one, slowly. His thrashing will only worsen the pain and damage, more skin will get torn off if he struggled, so he was still this time. He couldn't stop his screams though and Yamori took pleasure in every pained sound he makes. The way his body would involuntarily twitch, trying to run away from the pain due to instinct.

Yamori places the fingernails in a neat order on a clean white cloth, shows the masterpiece to Kaneki as he talks about how he took them off one by one from Kaneki's shivering feet. His expression fond, like he was just talking about how he caught a new beetle in their backyard.

It was scary how a man like him can talk about something like that. Like Kaneki was a mere insect, another addition to his growing collection.

Yamori frames the fingernails, like before in the same room he confined Kaneki.

Kaneki hoped it'll take long for Yamori to fix the frame together, just to give him time to prepare himself to the next phase of the torture.

After this, he doesn't know where to hold anymore. Losing the limbs he use to grab things makes it hard, after all.

In the length of Kaneki's stay in Yamori's playpen he noticed that Yamori's favourite toy was the pliers.

They can cut and they can grab and pull anything.

His lack of fingers and missing teeth were a proof of that.

Yamori likes to inflict damage in the bones, so he rarely uses the knives and needles.

He twists his fingers, one by one. From the first joint to the next. When he's through with that, he clicks his tongue in a disapproving manner, and says, "Oh look, they're broken." He gives a tap on the trembling fingers with his pliers and Kaneki's would hands try to get away unconsciously. The feeling of the cold metal of the pliers against his warm skin became something akin to hot metal. The sensation brings nothing but memories and pain.

"We can't have that, do we?" He continues.

"And just like we do with broken teeth, we..?"

No. Please.

"…pull it out."

Kaneki screams the loudest, his voice growing hoarse and his body arching from the chair. The pain, oh the pain, it was too much.

He grabs the finger with his pliers and twists, like how a dentist does with teeth, to loosen it from the gum and then pulls.

It was so painful, he thought he was going to pass out.

He hoped he was going to pass out, but his mind seems to be stronger than that because there was never a time during his sessions with Jason that he ever fell unconscious. After, yes, but during? Never.

Jason pauses, the pliers already gripping a limb hard and about to be twisted. "Where were you?"

He chokes in his spit when he feels the pressure against his finger tighten, cries and sobs, forcing out a "five hundred fifty-nine, five hundred fifty-two," more sniffles and then another scream when his finger gets twisted and pulled before Jason's plier lets go to cut the flesh.

The bucket beside Kaneki's chair no longer makes a dull thudding sound, because the bottom is already filled with the rest of his fingers.

He cries.

Jason makes a noise in the back of his throat, and then walks away. The click of the metal door closing and locking was deafeningly loud in the too quiet room.

Apparently, Jason finally grew tired of playing with him. Says Kaneki's reactions were too predictable to be enjoyable.

Kaneki remembers that he wouldn't be here in the first place if he didn't played hero and tried to save Jason new playmates. But since Kaneki interfered and Jason liked him more, he let the mother and child go and picked Kaneki as his new playmate.

That was their deal.

So why is he seeing the mother and child in the floor in front of him, tied up and crying for their lives to be spared?

Jason said he grew bored and thought "Wouldn't it be more fun to play with more people?"

Kaneki have no idea how much time has passed since Jason took him captive and kept him as his playmate.

All his fingers were gone, and despite the fact that the centipede has already died somewhere inside his ears, he can still feel its ghost slithering inside, making noises.

Through time, his dark hair became white due pain.

He's fuming.

He's a freak.

He's a freak and he blames the man before him for turning him into something like this.

There was no way for him to live a normal, ordinary, happy life now. Its ruined.

It was all Jason's fault.

He's going to make him pay.

Jason enters his room one last time, saying game's over. Time for him to go.

That's good, Kaneki thinks.

Time for Jason to go.

There was no resistance when Jason untied the chain in his hands.

But when the chains in his feet were gone, the first thing he did was jump and bite Jason's face.

He was so mad, so angry, and tired.

And hungry.

He doesn't know how long he has been kept captive, with no food and water so he has been hungry.

The moment he bites Jason's nose off, he swallows and craves for more.

Jason was too shocked and pained to defend himself. His tray of tools was not with him at the moment.

So Kaneki bites and swallows. Bites and swallows.

s.

s.

The authorities found him like that, humming his late mother's lullaby, lounging on Jason's corpse. Blood smeared his face and mouth.

The room reeks of blood, sweat, urine, and other unrecognisable body fluids.

Jason's family wanted to file a case against him, but lost. After all, you can't charge a person murder if they were not in their right mind.

The authorities dug further into the large mansion, and saw in the basement the things Yakumo Oomori did in his past time.

The FBI soon flocked and officially gave the nickname Jason, as how Kaneki addressed the man when asked for his statement.

Kaneki looks up tiredly at the rotting building before him.

This is Hide's home. Why was he here?

For someone who avoided the outside and the morning light like the plague, it was surprise to Kaneki to find himself sleep walk of all things to this ugly broken down house.

His feet slowly drags him inside, up the stairs and back to the metal railings he leaned on before the accident.

Of course, the railings were gone now; they broke and fell down along with him months ago.

Five months, exactly.

Just like the duration of his stay in Jason's basement.

He sits on the wall facing the broken railings and rests his chin on his knees before inhaling the air inside the rotting house.

It was run-down and actually disgusting to sit on, but somehow it calms Kaneki's nerves.

The cold air and the peace. Everything.

He rests his head against the wall and sighs comfortably when he feels something soft lie at rest against his shoulder.

"It was you, wasn't it?" Kaneki whispers, eyes still closed.

Beside him, he can feel the person shift, feel cold, rough hands from working in the farm seven days a week gently grab his knees and lie them flat on the floor before lying his soft white hair on his lap.

When Kaneki hears no response, he cracks an eye open and looks down. Sees him for the very first time outside of his memories but still carries his face. It was a long time and he never saw a mirror after he was kidnapped. He forgot his name, his face, his identity. Nothing.

His hair is white, like how Kaneki has always thought it was supposed to. The grey eyes soft as his turns to stare back at him. That mouth opens and talks in his voice, "How did you know?"

Kaneki merely smiles, "I'm a horror writer."

Kaneki had to urge to give himself a congratulatory pat in the back when he managed to finish his next book before the deadline, with three days to spare.

He spent those three days trying to catch the sleep he had to miss for writing an entire book in a span of four weeks or less though. But it was worth it.

He honestly did not expect his new book to be another best-seller, but he was glad, nonetheless.

His editor personally liked the story themselves, and asked him a few weeks later, after its approval for publication where did he pull that out?

At first, Kaneki looks at his editor in surprise, eyes wide and mouth slightly agape. He takes a few seconds to get his composure back and smiles.

Turning his head left and right, he says, "Just hit my head a few months ago, then it came to me." His expression fond.

* * *

**E/N: **  
**what is this**  
**I don't know ha hahahaaa bye**


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